Abstract: This talk will present recent research in the area of multi-vehicle control and optimization for sampling spatiotemporal processes in the atmosphere and ocean. Sampling performance can be optimized by path-planning algorithms that drive vehicles to specific regions of the operational domain containing the most informative data. We will describe two planning approaches: one using nonlinear observability to optimize sampling trajectories and the other using optimal interpolation. In the first approach, coordinated trajectories for sampling a parametrized flowfield are optimized using the empirical observability gramian. We reconstruct the parameters of the flowfield from noisy flow measurements collected along the sampling trajectories using a recursive Bayesian filter. The second approach is designed for sampling nonstationary fields, in which the spatial and temporal statistics may vary in space and time. We design a coordinate transformation under which uniform sampling is optimal, because the unknown field is stationary in the new coordinates. In both approaches, we use tools from nonlinear control, specifically Lyapunov-based control, to design decentralized algorithms for stabilization of multi-vehicle sampling formations. Time permitting, applications including hurricane forecasting and underwater vehicle navigation will be discussed.

Biography:

Derek A. Paley is an Associate Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and the Institute for Systems Research at the University of Maryland. He is the founding director of the Collective Dynamics and Control Laboratory and a member of the Vertical Lift Rotorcraft Center of Excellence, the Maryland Robotics Center, and the Program in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science. Paley received the B.S. degree in Applied Physics from Yale University in 1997 and the Ph.D. degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University in 2007. He received the National Science Foundation CAREER award in 2010 and is co-author of Engineering Dynamics: A Comprehensive Introduction (Princeton University Press, 2011). His research interests are in the area of dynamics and control, including cooperative control of autonomous vehicles, adaptive sampling with mobile networks, and spatial modeling of biological groups. His research is based on support by the U.S. Army, the Office of Naval Research, and the National Science Foundation. Paley is an Associate Fellow of AIAA and a Senior Member of IEEE.